A Better Technique For Making Artificial Muscles

Artificial muscles have great scope in the world of robotics, automobiles, as well as aviation industry. A team of researchers working at MIT recently came up with one of the most cost-effective and simple systems that can develop these parts. The fundamental ingredient to this mix is a very ubiquitous and inexpensive material – the nylon fiber. The new approach focuses on heating and shaping of these synthetic fiber materials in a specific manner. The complete research and process has been published by Professor Ian Hunter and a doctoral student called Seyed Mirvakili.

Prior to this, researchers used a fundamental principle if twisting nylon filament to iterate the basic minear muscle activity. They explained that for a defined weight and size devices like these can be retracted and extended further, release and store energy, just like the natural fiber. Other functions like bending like human limbs and fingers have proved to be biggest hurdle that was yet to be crossed in a cost-effective and easy manner till the MIT team showed up.

Artificial muscles

There are a few other pre-existing materials that can help in such bending motions and can always be used for a few other biomedical devices as well as tactile displays. Mirvakili says, that these pre-existing techniques tend to use, “exotic materials to do the job, and they are very expensive and very difficult to make” The carbon nanotube yarns, for example, are capable of producing high longevity but cost too much for a large scale usage, similarly, the shape-memory alloys have a strong contracting pull but their life-cycle is very poor

The latest nylon-based system uses a very economically priced material along with a very easy process of manufacturing. Added bonus, it has better than average longevity. The complete process comes down to the shaping of nylon fibers. A few other materials, like nylon, have an exclusive property – their diameter increases as their length shrinks. The same property has been harnessed to formulate a few linear actuator devices. However, they need a special mechanism to: turn that linear shrinking movement into bending. They may need to use a take-up reel, a pulley, or may need to add some extra complexity with some extra expenditure.